Tuesday, June 28, 2016

If you are not familiar with either Microman or the Micronauts, you probably didn't grow up in the 70's. I sure didn't. It wasn't until my second time living in Japan, at the age of 31, that I finally caught onto the awesomeness that makes up these micro-sized action figures.

Fortunately for those of you too young to have caught the original wave of these guys, IDW has recently resurrected the Micronauts comic book seriesand Hasbro is joining in on the fun by releasing a new set of vintage style Micronauts action figures exclusive to this summer's San Diego Comic-Con. However most die-hard MicroFans will tell you that there have been a few minor changes made to these new figures... oh well:)

Back in the mid 70's through the mid 80's Microman and the Micronauts were the shit. For those of you who want a quick overview of the history of Microman and the Micronauts please check out my article from last year, it'll catch you up on all of the basics.

As I mentioned before, it wasn't up until a few of years ago during my return to life in Tokyo that I actually discovered the phenomenon that was known as Microman. It was essentially the first 3 3/4" action figure ever produced. Not only that, it also had the articulation of a G.I. Joe and came in awesome sci-fi inspired cyborg characters. Too bad I was born right as the US version, the Micronauts, were being phased out of toy stores :(

Anyway, one day after moving back to Tokyo, I was on a toy hunt, looking for Godzilla sofubi (soft vinyl) and vintage Star Wars toys on the Western side of Tokyo in a town called Kichijoji. I eventually came across a toy shop called TOY CATS SHOWCASE. It was down in the basement level within a cluster of shops so I couldn't really see what was inside without going in to have a look around. The sign outside said "OLD & NEW TOYS", so that was a good sign.

That was the moment that my eyes were opened to Microman in all of it's chrome headed glory.

Earlier this year the owner of TOY CATS, whom is now my good friend, let me borrow an old and somewhat rare CD-R that was absolutely full of vintage Japanese action figure commercials. Specifically it contains TV ads for action figures that were produced by the toy company Takara, whom created Microman. He gave me permission to copy the disc and upload any of it's content to my Youtube channel. Of course I wasted no time going through the entire disc and the first thing I decided to upload was a complete collection of the vintage Microman commercials. Now I would like to share them with you. . .

. . . so sit back with a hot coffee or cold beer and enjoy these mega awesome TV ads.